During a recent interview on the “Countdown Podcast” (via FOX Sports), Renzo Gracie discussed his recent training sessions with Shane McMahon for Sunday’s WWE WrestleMania 32 pay-per-view event. Here are some highlights:
On Shane’s Brazilian jiu-jitsu work: “We’re training jiu-jitsu. That’s how we do, we only train jiu-jitsu. He’s been training a lot of jiu-jitsu — how to apply moves, how to escape moves. The thing is he loves jiu-jitsu and he’s been training for a while. He was training before he was even thinking about doing a match like that. Because he was out for a while, he was a little chubby, and all he did was come everyday at 6 o’clock in the morning and roll. Train for like an hour, hour and a half and now he’s cut, extremely good shape and he’s even enjoying more jiu-jitsu now. Doing guard, doing shoulder locks, omo platas, triangles, everything. Jiu-jitsu is addicting, once you begin rolling with your friends, you start knowing what you’re doing, you don’t want to stop.”
On Shane being in shape: “In reality, Shane trains with us for over eight years. He’s been training with us for a long time and then he moved out for a few years, on this period he had to leave for a few years, and then he came back. He’s in the best shape of his life. I couldn’t believe the shape that he’s in. He’s been training a lot of Muay Thai with Phil Nurse, who is the coach for Georges St-Pierre and a lot of other good guys, and he’s in really good shape for this match, for this show that they are putting up in the Dallas arena.”